Frequency spreading of internal wave energy by balanced flows in two dimensions
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arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866911637908226048 |
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| author | DeFilippis, Nicholas Bühler, Oliver Smith, K. Shafer |
| author_facet | DeFilippis, Nicholas Bühler, Oliver Smith, K. Shafer |
| contents | Interactions between inertia-gravity waves and balanced flows lead to a spectral diffusion of wave action. Prior work has established that this diffusion is weak across constant frequency surfaces in three-dimensional settings, but can be significant in two dimensions with a non-stationary balanced flow. We investigate the two-dimensional setting through numerical simulations that simultaneously evolve a turbulent quasigeostrophic balanced flow and advect rotating shallow water wave packets. In contrast to earlier predictions based on the synthetic flows used by Dong et al. (J. Fluid Mech., 2020, vol. 905, R3), we find that frequency spreading from wave mean-flow interactions is weaker for realistic turbulent flows. We derive a timescale for frequency diffusion and show that frequency spreading with a realistic background flow is an order of magnitude smaller than with the synthetic flow. We narrow the discrepancy between the two- and three-dimensional induced diffusion theories, which suggests other mechanisms are responsible for the broadband frequency spectra seen in the atmosphere and ocean. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_00243 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Frequency spreading of internal wave energy by balanced flows in two dimensions DeFilippis, Nicholas Bühler, Oliver Smith, K. Shafer Fluid Dynamics Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics Interactions between inertia-gravity waves and balanced flows lead to a spectral diffusion of wave action. Prior work has established that this diffusion is weak across constant frequency surfaces in three-dimensional settings, but can be significant in two dimensions with a non-stationary balanced flow. We investigate the two-dimensional setting through numerical simulations that simultaneously evolve a turbulent quasigeostrophic balanced flow and advect rotating shallow water wave packets. In contrast to earlier predictions based on the synthetic flows used by Dong et al. (J. Fluid Mech., 2020, vol. 905, R3), we find that frequency spreading from wave mean-flow interactions is weaker for realistic turbulent flows. We derive a timescale for frequency diffusion and show that frequency spreading with a realistic background flow is an order of magnitude smaller than with the synthetic flow. We narrow the discrepancy between the two- and three-dimensional induced diffusion theories, which suggests other mechanisms are responsible for the broadband frequency spectra seen in the atmosphere and ocean. |
| title | Frequency spreading of internal wave energy by balanced flows in two dimensions |
| topic | Fluid Dynamics Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.00243 |